The technological background and the essential features of the present invention are described in application Ser. No. 08/127,400, the parent of the present application, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. The parent application focussed on, but did not restrict the invention to, applications of the invention involving the testing of integrated circuits. The claims of this application are directed to use of the disclosed invention in connection with the testing of connectors, push button switches, DIP switches, sockets, and the like, as well as integrated circuits.
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings depicts a connector 10 comprising a plurality of pins 12, a printed circuit board 14, and a board support fixture 16. The pins 12 are typically soldered to a solder pad on the top surface of the board 14 or, alternatively, inserted through holes in the board and soldered to the bottom surface of the board. In addition, electrically conductive traces (not shown) are typically printed on a surface of the board 14. These components are well known and are discussed herein only because one preferred application of the present invention involves testing solder joints between pins of an electrical connector and solder pads or other nodes of a printed circuit board with a bed of nails automatic tester. However, it should be noted that the present invention is by no means limited to connectors or to the one type of connector depicted in FIG. 1. For further background information relating to the present invention, the reader is referred to the above-cited application Ser. No. 08/127,400.